It's ages since she arrived

Question

In English,

It is three years since I last saw Bill

and

It is three years since I have seen Bill

are both correct and similar in meaning.

But we can't say

'It's ages since she's arrived', and it should be changed to SHE ARRIVED; is there a difference between these two and the above two?

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

Johnson13is there a difference between these two and the above two?

Yes, but it may be easier to see the difference if you try two things: 1) Paraphrase each sentence as I show below. 2) Consider the difference between verbs that show continuous actions and verbs that show instantaneous action.

1 It is three years since I last saw Bill. ~ I last saw Bill three years ago.
2 It is three years since I have seen Bill. ~ I have not seen Bill for (a period of) three years.
3 It's ages since she arrived. ~ She arrived ages ago.
4 It's ages since she's arrived. ~ She has not arrived for (a period of) ages.

1 and 2 differ from 3 and 4 because 'see' is a different kind of verb than 'arrive'. You can continue to see over a period of time. If you see something for an hour, at every moment within that hour you are seeing it. In contrast, you cannot continue to arrive over a period of time. There is no such thing as arriving for an hour. You always arrive at an instant in time, so you can't say that at every moment within that hour you are arriving.

Compare 2 and 4.

2 says that over the period of time of three years I continued not to see Bill.
4 says that over the period of time of ages she continued not to arrive.

But continuity is not something that applies to the verb 'arrive', so it's somewhat strange to say 4.

CJ

Johnson13 · Answer

Thanks.

But can we say

She's arrived since 7 o'clock?

CalifJim · Answer

Johnson13But can we say She's arrived since 7 o'clock?

No. That is very strange indeed. She arrived after 7 o'clock. She has been here since 7 o'clock.

CJ

Johnson13 · Answer

Thanks.

I think the main reason is ARRIVE is a one-moment act still.

But in English we can say

We have become friends since the gathering.

Isn't BECOME the same type of verb as ARRIVE? When we say a prince becomes a frog, it is impossible to continue the act of becoming nonstop, right? Could you tell me the difference between?

CalifJim · Answer

Johnson13Isn't BECOME the same type of verb as ARRIVE? When we say a prince becomes a frog, it is impossible to continue the act of becoming nonstop, right?

Yes, I believe you have a point there.

But you can't comfortably say "We have become friends since 7 o'clock" or "They (have) won the game since Tuesday".

Maybe it's a since-clause with a specific time that creates the problem. I haven't thought about it that deeply. Besides, some of the judgments about whether you can or can't say a given sentence are not absolute. You may get different opinions from others regarding the acceptability of such sentences.

CJ

Johnson13 · Answer

Thanks.

Since it's an interesting problem, I hope you don't mind me persuing it further.

Ten seconds ago I heard a news reporter who is a native English speaker say:

XYZ law (it should be gun control or something similar) has not been passed since1994.

Do you think it's natural or was it a slip of the tongue?

Fivejedjon · Answer

Johnson13XYZ law (it should be gun control or something similar) has not been passed since1994.

As it stands it's not natural. It would be fine as 'A gun control law has not been passed'.

Johnson13 · Answer

fivejedjon Johnson13XYZ law (it should be gun control or something similar) has not been passed since1994.As it stands it's not natural. It would be fine as 'A gun control law has not been passed'.

Thanks.

Sorry for not giving a clear version of the sentence.

As a non-native speaker, I think the following is natural, do you agree?

No major gun legislation has passed the US Congress since 1994.

But if it's natural, my original problem remains unsolved: the act of passing something in Parliament is a transient thing - hang on - at this point a grammatical sentence has sprung to mind:

He has died since then.

Does it mean the tense wholly depends on a particular verb itself without any tense rules?

CalifJim · Answer

Johnson13XYZ law (it should be gun control or something similar) has not been passed since1994.Do you think it's natural or was it a slip of the tongue?

I think we may be getting somewhere with this example, but I warn you that it may be a false lead, and we still may have to abandon this line of thought and go back to the drawing board.

Consider this:

1 The Brady Gun Control Bill [a made-up name, by the way] has not been passed since 1994.
2 No major gun control bill has been passed since 1994.

The subject of 1 references a definite entity. 1 is ungrammatical.
The subject of 2 does not reference a definite entity. (No ... bill is indefinite.) 2 is grammatical.

By the way, if you substitute 3 (below) for 2, you'll still have an indefinite subject and a grammatical sentence, even though 3, in my opinion, is a little less idiomatic than 2.

3 A major gun control bill has not been passed since 1994.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

Johnson13He has died since then.

This one has a definite subject but no negation. The lack of negation probably changes how we judge whether the pattern is grammatical or not.

So the trick is to list every combination of subject (definite vs indefinite), verb type (continuable or instantaneous), negation (with or without), and time type after "since" (specific mention, i.e., Tuesday, 7 o'clock, or general, i.e., the war, the meeting.)

This should give you 2⁴= 16 types of sentence.

Then find or create three or more sentences of each type (at least 48 sentences) and ask native speakers to make a judgment (Is it grammatical or not?) on each sentence. (You might even need a category "maybe"!)

That should isolate the factor or factors that explain the use of the grammatical patterns you're interested in.

Linguistics research is not always easy, but the alternative is to accept native speakers' half-baked intuitions about how these patterns actually work.

CJ

It's ages since she arrived

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